"I can't tell," said Barbican curtly.
"Well!" said Ardan; "if Barbican can't tell, there is an end to all
further talk on the subject. We're switched off--that's enough for me.
What has done it? I don't care. Where are we going to? I don't care.
What is the use of pestering our brains about it? We shall soon find
out. We are floating around in space, and we shall end by hauling up
somewhere or other."
But in this indifference Barbican was far from participating. Not that
he was not prepared to meet the future with a bold and manly heart. It
was his inability to answer his own question that rendered him uneasy.
What _had_ switched them off? He would have given worlds for an answer,
but his brain sorely puzzled sought one in vain.
In the mean time, the Projectile continued to turn its side rather than
its base towards the Moon; that is, to assume a lateral rather than a
direct movement, and this movement was fully participated in by the
multitude of the objects that had been thrown outside. Barbican could
even convince himself by sighting several points on the lunar surface,
by this time hardly more than fifteen or eighteen thousand miles
distant, that the velocity of the Projectile instead of accelerating was
becoming more and more uniform.
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